651 
8 J5 
py 1 



The 
Transylvania Problem 

By 
John Jivi-Banatanu 

Editor of "America" 
Roumanian Daily 



CLEVELAND, O. 



Published and Distributed by Roumanian 
National League of America 
5705 Detroit Ave. 

1920 



The 
Transylvania Problem 

By 
John Jivi-Banatanu 

Editor of "America" 
Roumanian Daily 



CLEVELAND, O. 



Published and Distributed by Roumanian 

National League of America 

5705 Detroit Ave. 

1920 






FOREWORD! 

At time of going to press, the newspaper carry dispatches 
saying Hungarians from all parts of the United States are to as- 
semble in Washington during the week of April 4 to urge President 
Wilson and members of Congress to support the protests of Hun- 
gary against "the giving of territory to new states created on the 
ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire." 

This movement is in keeping with the established Hungarian 
policies of propaganda. Roumanians in the United States and their 
kindred of Roumanian descent do not feel it necessary to go to 
Washington personally to contradict the claims which will be set 
forth by the Hungarians. 

So well established are the claims of Roumania to Transyl- 
vania that Roumanians everywhere are willing to stand on their 
case as established by historical and ethnological fact. If a ple- 
bescite is held in Transylvania, it will be welcomed by all Rou- 
manians, for it can have only one result: a greater Roumania. 

Transylvania is Roumanian in body and spirit. 



Gift 
JUL 23 I92Q 



'1! 



The 
Transylvania Problem 

i. 

THE ISSUES DEFINED 

Just what is the problem of Transylvania? 
Just what are the claims of Roumania upon this 
rich province, so long almost forgotten by the 
world, except as a part of the Kingdom of Hun- 
gary and the empire of the Hapsburgs? 

Did not the Roumanians seize Transylvania 
by force, after the armistice, and contrary to the 
wishes of the Allied Council in Paris? Are they 
not seeking thus by force to make this war not a 
war of principles but a war of conquest? 

In the United States, where so little of the 
truth about Roumania has been known by the 
people, such questions are common enough. It is 
the purpose of this booklet to tell Americans 
the truth about the problem of Transylvania. 

A ROUMANIA IRREDENTA. 

Transylvania is the Roumania Irredenta, the 
Roumanian Alsace-Lorraine. Its people, des- 



spite oppression, always have been Roumanian. 
In the beginning it was, and in the future it 
must be a part of Roumania. 

If anything, it is more to the Roumanians 
as a nation than the Italia Irredenta to the 
Italians, than Alsace-Lorraine to the French. 
It is more than a lost province. The moun- 
tains of Transylvania were the birthplace of the 
Roumanian nation. 

It was in the Carpathians that the race of 
Dacians had its origin, a race which even in its 
earliest days had a civilization, which was one 
of the first to abandon the killing of captives in 
warfare and other savage practices. 

Under the emperor Trajan, Rome extended 
her sway over the lands of the Dacians, but 
the Dacians were never so much conquered as 
combined with the Latin invaders. The Rou- 
manian race and the Roumanian language are 
the offspring of this union. 

But throughout the world and particularly 
in the United States little has been heard except 
the noisy but hypocritical propaganda of the 
Hungarians. For centuries the Hungarians 
have played the wolf at home and the lamb 
abroad. 

Before disaster felled the Central Empires, 
Hungary stood over her subject peoples and her 
small neighbors with the heavy rods of force 
and terror, compelling silence. Abroad she 



crept into the presence of the world as the victim 
and slave of rapacious Austria. 

Today Hungary stands before the world 
singing a pathetic song about her woes and 
losses. Her latest plea is that the Roumanians 
have seized Transylvania . And Hungary now claims 
Transylvania by right of long occupation as a 
homeland, despite history, despite a census 
which reveals that Transylvania today is still 
overwhelmingly Roumanian. 

IF AMERICA SUFFERED. 

Let me bring the situation a little nearer 
home to the American people so they may under- 
stand the feelings of the Roumanians regarding 
Transylvania. 

Suppose the Germans or the Japanese or the 
Hottentots or any other race were to swarm 
down upon the Atlantic seaboard of the United 
States and occupy by force the thirteen states 
which were the original colonies. 

Suppose after centuries of armed oppression 
they were to advance the claim that they, and 
not the New Englanders, the New Yorkers, the 
Pennsylvanians, the Virginians and the Geor- 
gians, were the original settlers. 

Suppose the invaders were to advance the 
theory that the Americans in the occupied terri- 
tory had come there by migration from the 
plains of the Middle West, moving eastward 
through the Appalachian mountains. 



Impossible! Unthinkable! Yet this is just 
the sort of claim advanced by Hungary in her 
plea to retain Transylvania. This, for Ameri- 
cans, hypothetical tragedy has been the tragedy 
of the Roumanians for centuries. 

In the face of history, despite all reason and 
justice, Hungary would tell the world that the 
Roumanians who predominate in Transylvania 
were immigrants who came by migration from 
the east. Even the names of the towns and 
rivers of the province, the name of Transylvania 
itself give the lie to this argument. 

ROUMANIAN HOMELAND. 

The mountains of Transylvania are as truly 
the birthplace of the Roumanian nation as the 
thirteen colonies were the birthplace of the 
American nation. Transylvania is as truly 
Roumanian as New York or Massachusetts or 
Virginia are American. Consider this and you 
will begin to understand the aspirations of the 
Roumanian people. 

"But," say the subtle Magyar propagandists, 
"the Roumanians did not await the dictates of 
the Peace Conference. They threw their armies as 
far as Budapest. It was force they used to 
wrest Transylvania from us. Plunder and con- 
quests were the objects of their invasion." 

To this argument the answer is simple. 
In 1919, when Roumania moved against Hun- 
gary, the Bolshevist rule of Bela Kun was men- 



acing not only Roumania but all of Europe. 
The diplomats at Paris faltered. The Rou- 
manians did not. They acted. They destroyed 
the red menace to all Central Europe. 

And when Bela Kun had been overthrown, 
the Roumanians retired peacefully, to the bor- 
ders of Transylvania, which they held, rightfully, 
as their own, but not by right of conquest, but 
by right of heritage and history. 

The Transylvanians themselves joined vol- 
untarily with the Roumanians and today exer- 
cise large authority and power in the govern- 
ment of the whole kingdom. 

Compare the Roumanian invasion of Bol- 
shevik Hungary with the earlier invasion of 
Roumania by the Central Powers, Hungary 
among the foremost. Where the armies of the 
Central Powers had spread terror and suffering 
the Roumanian armies restored law and order. 
Roumania had been looted and ravaged. Hun- 
gary felt only the strong hand of a just and 
compelling police power. 

The world owes a debt to Roumania for 
what she did, both during the war and after; 
and the world must not be deceived by the pite- 
ous cries of those who only a short time ago were 
openly the world's enemies. 

But Roumania is not asking for mere re- 
wards and favors. She is asking only for jus- 
tice. Her national aspirations are not born of 
victory. They are the aspirations of a thousand 



years of existence. Roumania asks for Transyl- 
vania; holds Transylvania simply because it al- 
ways has been and always will be Roumanian, 
and is part and parcel of Roumanian national 
existence. 

America can and will do much to strengthen 
the cause of Roumania when the truth is known 
everywhere, for in the facts of history itself are 
found arguments which appeal to the American 
sense of justice and fair play. 

II. 

IMPARTIAL FACTS TALK 

Transylvania is a high plateau walled in on 
all sides by an irregular circle of mountains. 
On the east and south are the high peaks of the 
Carpathians. Running down from the north 
is a spur of lower ranges which form the west 
wall of the country. 

It is as though the mountains themselves had 
opened out and formed this rich state over which 
they stand sentinel. It is a rolling country with 
a mean altitude of 1,000 to 1,600 feet above sea 
level. It is rich in fields and forests and mineral 
resources. The mountains feed its many rivers. 

THE ORIGINAL ROUMANIA. 

In the days before the Romans came, the 
Dacians had their homes in the lofty mountains 
to the east and south of Transylvania, and from 



them they roamed at will both east and west. 
Their realm comprised both Transylvania and 
what is now Roumania proper. 

The Romans under Trajan in the Second 
Century secured control of this kingdom, but 
they kept its boundaries intact. They planted 
Roman colonies not to exterminate the Dacians 
but to mingle with them and build a barrier 
state against the barbarian hordes to the north. 

Thus the Roumanian nation was established 
in the two great plains east and west of the 
Carpathians, with its point of origin firmly 
established in those mountains. When the Ro- 
man empire receded the Roumanian nation was 
left behind, a new race, a composite of Romans 
and Dacians. 

It was a race which had inherited laws and a 
deep respect for law and order from their ances- 
tors. Under its native princes it flourished. 
And in particular, the fame of Dacia Felix, as 
Transylvania was then known, spread abroad. 

THE HUNGARIAN SWEEPS IN. 

It was this richness of the country which 
attracted the roving Hungarians under Arpad 
in 890-898 and later their cousins, the Huns; and 
sweeping in through the low mountains to the 
west, as Anonymus Belae Notarius tells us in 
the Fourteenth Century, they laid the country 
waste and brought it under subjection. 

In Transylvania, Prince Gelu; in Maramur- 



esh, Prince Menu-Morot ; in Crishana and Banat, 
Prince Claudiu, fell under the invader. Mora- 
via and Panonia were subdued also. 

Anonymus Belae Notarius tells us that for a 
time after the invasion a compact of peace en- 
dured between the Roumanians and the Hun- 
garians. But it was impossible for this to con- 
tinue. 

Two more different races could not have 
been brought together. The Roumanians, peace 
loving and law-abiding, industrious and cul- 
tured. The Huns, a race of Nomads, seeking 
only to profit by the industry of other peoples. 
A mingling of the races, as when the Romans 
met the Dacians, was out of the question. 

Rapidly the Hungarians drew away from 
their agreement and instead of working with the 
Roumanians imposed a tyranny of force and 
oppression, a tyranny against which the Rou- 
manians rebelled again and again but which 
lasted until Hungary fell. 

HIS APOLOGISTS REFUTED. 

Hungarian apologists have tried to justify 
this oppression, the effort to exterminate the 
Roumanians in Transylvania with the theory 
that the Roumanians there were not there in 
the beginning, but came by invasion and migra- 
tion from east to west. 

In 1886 Hunfalvy, (alias Hunsdorfer) and 
Rethy, two Hungarians, with the aid of 

10 



Robert Roessler, endeavored to prove a claim 
that the Hungarians were the original inhabi- 
tants of the province. But Lavisse, Gibbon, 
Ranke, and other authorites on the subject 
have offered this refutation : 

1. The Carpathian mountains have easy- 
passes on the west whence the Huns came, 
whereas on the east they are high and difficult, 
making a huge natural fortress, so that a Rou- 
manian invasion from the east in the early days 
with the poor transportation and facilities for 
warfare seems more than an impossibility. 

2. The names of rivers, towns, localities to 
this day show the existence there prior to the 
coming of the Huns of the Latin civilization f 
for the existence of such names in Hungarian 
territory is not explainable otherwise. 

AUTHORITIES SPEAK. 

Says Mr. R. H. Seton- Watson, B. Litt. (The 
Rise of Nationality in the Balkans, p. 58) : 

"A purely academic question has been dis- 
torted to serve the purpose of rival parties and 
to prove or disprove claims of racial supremacy. 
Certain points cannot and never will be cleared 
up for lack of evidence, it is true. 

"But the main lines are absolutely clear and 
no amount of political special pleading can suc- 
ceed in distorting them. The modern Rou- 
manians are the descendants of the Roman 

li 



colonists whom Trajan planted for the defence 
of the empire against the northern barbarians. 

"Perhaps the best proof that the Roumanian 
tide did not set from south to north and from 
east to west, as the Magyar apologists argue 
but from north to south and from west to east, 
is supplied by the position of the various capi- 
tals. 

"In Wallachia, the original centers were 
Cimpulung and Curtea de Arges, which were 
superseded first by Tirgovistea and finally by 
Bucuresti; while in Moldavia, the capital was 
transferred from its original seat in Suceava to 
Jassy. In each case it was a gradual descent 
from the northern and western mountains to 
the plains of the Danubian system." 

The great Slavist F. Miklositsch is another 
who refutes the belated claims of the Hungarian 
propagandists : 

"The origin of the Roumanian language,' 
he says, "dates to the Second Century and the 
Roman colonies thrown across the Danube." 

And Prof. J. Jung declares: 

"The origin of the Roumanians is found in 
the continuation of the Romans planted by 
Trajan in Dacia." 

T. Tamm, V. Duruy and other authorities 
support this fact ; and we find evidence even in 
as early source as the "History of the Mongols", 
written by the Persian chronicler, Rashid Al-Din. 

12 



AND VOICE OF PEOPLE. 

There is, however, a fourth, and most power- 
ful argument which refutes the Hungarian 
claims to Transylvania as a homeland. It is the 
Roumanian majority in the population of Tran- 
sylvania today, a majority which has existed 
since the beginning, defied extermination, and 
stands as a tribute to the virility of the Rou- 
manian race. 

In 1900, the "Ungariches Statistisches Jahr- 
buch, Bd. IX" gave the following figures on the 
national origins of the people in all Hungary p 
exclusive of Croatia- Slavonia : 

♦Magyar 8,588,834 

Non-Magyars 8,132,740 divided as follows: 

German 1,980,423 

Slovak 1,991,402 

Roumanian. . . . 2,784,726 

Ruthenian 423,159 

Croat 188,552 

Serbian 434,641 

Minor races 329,837 

'There were 851,378 Jews classified as Magyars. 

So much for the general population survey 
of all Hungary in 1900. Now look at popula- 
tion distribution in Transylvania itself as shown 
by the Hungarian official figures in 1910. In 
ten counties, it will be seen, the Roumanians 
have a crushing majority. The following table 
is Hungarian: 

13 



Per cent Rou- 
Rou- Hun- manian 

County manian garian of all 

nationalities 

Fogaras 84,436 3,263 90.2 

Also-Feher 171,483 7,269 78.8 

Hunyad 271,765 52,720 84.7 

Szolnok-Doboka. . 189,483 52,181 76.3 

Torda-Aranyos. . . 125,668 44,630 72.9 

Bestercze-Naszod. 87,564 10,737 69.2 

Szeben 113,672 10,159 66.9 

Kolozs 161,127 111,439 68.6 

Arad 239,755 124,215 65.0 

In eight other counties the Roumanians 
were found to form from 30 to 60 per cent of 
the total population, in nearly every case out- 
numbering the Hungarians. 

Kis-Kukullo 55,585 34,902 50 . 8 

Nagy-Kukullo 60,881 18,474 42.7 

Maros-Turda 71,009 134,166* 36.8 

Brasso 35,091 35,372 35.7 

Szhilagy 136,087 87,312 60. 6 

Bihar 265,098 365,642 44.8 

Maramaros 84,510 52,964 36. 8 

Szatmar 119,760 268,385 34.6 

These are all Hungarian figures. The Rou- 
manian preponderance in Transylvania is even 
more apparent when we consider the manner in 
which Hungarian figures were obtained. 

DISCOUNTING HUN FIGURES. 

In the eighteen counties are nearly 1,000,000 
Magyars; but if we deduct the Magyar majori- 
ties here and there which were maintained by 

14 



processes of Gerrymandering for political pur- 
poses; if we deduct the parts of those counties 
through which the Magyar Roumanian ethnical 
frontier passes, the Magyar minority in Rou- 
manian territory is as low as 1 to 9. 

Also, in order to arrive at something like 
true figures, the Hungarian official population 
in the occupied territory should be discounted- 
Washington during the war offered an example 
of how officialdom could pack a city. 

But the Roumanians in Transylvania had 
many Washingtons. Their whole territorial 
structure was encrusted with Hungarian officials, 
enumerated with the rest of the population by 
the Hungarian census takers. If we deduct for 
this super-cargo of officialdom the Hungarian 
ratio falls from 1 to 9 to 1 to 15 for the Rou- 
manians. 

Again, the Hungarian census figures were 
"stuffed" with "Magyars de contrabande,'' 
even according to Karl Klette, writing in the 
"Ungarische Revue," Budapest. 

"Usually," he says of the census takers, 
' 'they do not ask a man his nationality but if he 
speaks Hungarian. If he says 'Yes' he is put 
down as a Hungarian." Another ruse was to 
put down infants and helpless people as Hun- 
garians, regardless of their national origin. 



15 



RELIGION TELLS TALE. 

Foreign writers, aware of the trickery in 
Hungarian statistics, however, have based their 
estimates of the Roumanian population in Hun- 
gary on religious figures, rather than on the 
figures of the Budapesth government. 

Where the Hungarians say there were only 
2,784,726 Roumanians in all Hungary in 1900 
and only 2,948,000 in 1916, these writers esti- 
mate the Roumanian population at 3,600,000 
to 3,700,000. In "Rumanien," by Dr. Otto 
Freiher von Dungen, 1916, p. 31, is found an 
example of this correction of the Hungarian fig- 
ures on population. 

There can be no doubt that Transylvania is 
ethnically and always has been ethnically Roum- 
anian. 

Thus the Hungarian apologists are com- 
pletely discredited and the Roumanian claims 
are seen to rest upon three proven facts : 

1. That Transylvania is geographically Rou- 
manian. 

2. That Transylvania is historically Rou- 
manian. 

3. That Transylvania, despite centuries of 
Hungarian misrule, has maintained its Rou- 
mainian identity in population and is still ethni- 
cally Roumanian. 



16 



III. 
TRANSYLVANIAN HISTORY 

Here the case of Roumania for holding 
Transylvania by occupation might rest were it 
not necessary for self -protection at the present 
time to reveal in detail the tragic history of the 
province and the duplicity and treachery which 
has always characterized Hungarian rule. 

For Hungary stands before the world today, 
still making her false pleas and special claims 
for favor; and the Roumanians feel they will be 
secure in what they have regained only if they 
put their whole story plainly and truthfully 
before the jury of the nations. 

In 1526, after the defeat of the Hungarians 
at the battle of Mohacs, the Transylvanians 
emerged as an independent state for the first 
time since they were submerged in the original 
Hun invasion. 

HAPSBURG TREACHERY. 

On Oct. 28, 1599, Mihaiu the Brave entered 
Transylvania with his vision of a united Rou- 
manian kingdom, but it lasted only a moment. 
On Aug. 9, 1601, Mihaiu the Brave was assassi- 
nated by Hapsburg plotters, who then took the 
province back into their own hands. 

For nearly a century, until 1691, the Haps- 
burgs allowed the Transylvanians some degree 
of autonomy; but there followed a military occu- 

17 



pation which was worse than any which had 
gone before. 

The Hapsburgs then reached an agreement 
with the Hungarian nobles, by which the prov- 
ince of Transylvania and the power over its 
Roumanian inhabitants was placed in the keep- 
ing of the Hungarian aristocracy. 

Massacres, horrors and persecutions inflicted 
on the luckless Roumanians in Transylvania 
led in 1784 to a revolution, which was put down 
only when the Roumanian leaders, Horia, 
Closca, and Crisan were put to death without 
trial. 

In the reflex of the French Revolution which 
happened soon after, the tyrants thought it best 
to lighten somewhat the burdens of the Rou- 
manian subjects, but this was only a respite. 
Soon again the Hungarian oppression was as 
severe as before. 

A PAWN IN POLITICS. 

So it went. Transylvania was used by the 
Hapsburgs as a pawn in their own private little 
game with the Hungarian nobility. In 1867, 
Transylvania was definitely and finally annexed 
to Hungary, the Austrians playing the part of 
Judas and the Hungarians the part of the hang- 
men in the tragedy. 

Protests of the Roumanian population of the 
province went for naught, for the oppressors 

18 



were not reckoning on the lasting moral force of 
the rebellion so easily crushed under foot in 
1784. That one incident (it was scarcely more 
than that on the surface) had taught the Rou- 
manians in Transylvania this important lesson — 
solidarity. 

In 1867, at the final annexation, a delegation 
of 110 Roumanians from the government of 
Transylvania found -their appeal to the Haps- 
burgs in vain; but they represented what the 
short-sighted Austrians and Hungarians could 
not see, a nation united against a tyrant. 

IV. 

HUNGARIAN POLICIES 

We have seen how the Roumanian inhabi- 
tants of Transylvania were bartered away time 
and time again into the hands of the Hungari- 
ans. It is fitting now to examine the character- 
istics of these masters of the province. For 
Hungary has always posed before the world as a 
martyred nation, the Hungarians as the ardent 
exponents of liberty; and since their revolution 
in 1848 they have urged this belief by a deliberate 
system of propaganda. 

The Hungarians a peace-loving people? Ask 
the Roumanians, the Slovaks, the Serbs, the 
Croats and the other nationalities who have been 
so unfortunate as to come under the Hungarian 
lash. See how their disguise is removed by the 
great Norwegian author, BjornstjerneBjornson: 

19 



TYRANTS AT HOME. 

"The Magyars are most zealous when it 
pertains to the work of peace abroad. Gener- 
ally they are the most zealous when it concerns 
humanity and legal consciousness. But at 
home, among themselves, they are oppressing 
millions of non-Magyars. 

"They are prohibiting them from speaking 
the language of their soul. They are vilifying 
their love for their historic traditions. They are 
closing their museums and confiscating every 
means by which they might remain in commu- 
nion with the life of their forefathers. 

"In their parliament they insult them by 
calling them 'swine.' They throw them down 
the stairways. They spit at them in the news- 
papers. The man who in his office of chief 
minister of education is directing this vilifica- 
tion (he is now head of the Hungarian delega- 
tion at Paris) is simultaneously a champion of 
Christianity. His name is Count Apponyi. At 
all peace conferences, of all those present he 
does the most talking about peace". (Marz and 
Le Courier European, Sept. 17, 1907). 

And Mr. Seton- Watson, in the preface of his 
1 'RacialProblemsinHungary' ' , tells the same truth : 

"A writer who challenges the long-estab- 
lished belief in Hungarian liberty and tolerance 
must be prepared to meet a charge of prejudice 
and bias," he says. Hungarian propaganda has 
worked remarkably well for years; it is a game 
of which they are masters. 

20 



KOSSUTH REVEALED. 

Louis Kossuth had been held up to the world 
as the Hungarian champion of liberty. He 
was, for the Hungarians. But consider him as 
he was at home in his policies to all the subject 
non-Magyars. He was the leader among Hun- 
garian chauvinists, he instituted the terroriza- 
tion system of the non-Magyars, he was the 
father of Hungarian barbaric methods of Mag- 
yarization. 

Magyarization of the non-Magyars in Hun- 
gary began in 1825 with the calling of the first 
National Assembly after the period of absolu- 
tism. First came Count Szecheny with his 
theory of latent Magyarization of all non- 
Magyars, a policy by which he hoped subtly to 
steal the life breath of the subject nationalities 
and so avoid resistance among them, a policy of 
slow-death for all non-Magyars. 

But this gradual policy of Szecheny was too 
slow for the ardent Kossuth. "PestriHirlap", 
the Hungarian newspaper edited by him in 1841, 
reveals him as the prime advocate of forced 
Magyarization and a tyrant of the worst type 
towards all those non-Magyars. He denied the 
rights of all subject people to call themselves 
anything except Hungarian. In parliament, he 
upheld the doctrine that national and lingual 
unity is more precious than liberty, because 
liberty may be lost and regained but national 
unity never. This, only for Magyars, because 
the same right he denied to the non- Magyars. 

Where Szecheny had been content merely 
to Magyarize the administration of the govern- 
ment, Kossuth insisted on the Magyarization of 

21 



schools, churches and all other institutions. In 
parliament he was instrumental in getting 
enacted laws designed to crush the subordinate 
nationalities. He even went so far at one time 
as to profess ignorance of the whereabouts of 
Croatia. 

A RULE OF SPITE. 

Many of the radical pan- Magyar laws were 
repealed by the Austrians, who in turn feared 
solidarity in Hungary; but the Hungarians, in- 
stead of softening their rule over the subject 
nationalities, made it a rule of still more spiteful 
severity. 

As a result, when the Hungarian revolution 
against Austria broke out in 1848, the Hungari- 
ans found themselves with a revolution of their 
own on their hands. Not only the Roumanians 
in Transylvania, but the Serbs and the Slovaks 
in Hungarian provinces turned against their 
masters. The Roumanians had met May 16, 1848, 
on Liberty Field, near Blaj, and decided to free 
Transylvania from Hungary and fight for liberty. 
The Slovaks, at Lipto-Szt-Miklos took similar 
action. 

On May 18, 1848, the Serbs after electing 
Col. Suplicat their leader issued a proclamation 
declaring their right to live as a nationality, 
preserving their own language, dress and customs. 

Race war followed. The Russians interven- 
ing put Hungary back under Austrian rule for a 
time, and the Roumanians enjoyed a brief phase 
of liberty. 

22 



THE FINAL TREACHERY. 

Finally, however, after the Austrian defeat 
at Konnigratz in 1867, Hungary gained inde- 
pendence. Then the dual monarchy was formed, 
and the Transylvanians found themselves lashed 
tightly to Hungary, tricked again by the larger 
powers. Where they had at times had at least 
the form of an autonomous principality, they 
now found themselves part and parcel of the 
Hungarian estate. 

What then is the Magyar notion of liberty 
that has been so advertised in all the world? 
It was expressed by Kossuth himself in these 
words: "What is not Magyar is wrong. It 
should be Magyar. And what will not be Mag- 
yar will no longer be allowed to be." Could the 
Kaiser himself have voiced so well the spirit 
of a vicious imperialism? 



V. 

HUNGARY AND AUSTRIA 

So much for the attitude of the Hungarians 
toward their subject peoples. In passing let us 
examine more closely the Hungarian complaints 
that they have been only the instruments of 
Austria. It appears to be simply a case of 
"passing the buck." 

In the dual monarchy, Hungary enjoyed far 
more independence than was commonly sup- 
posed. Not only did Hungary have its own 

23 



parliament and its own internal government, 
but it virtually dominated the foreign office 
of the empire instead of playing only a minor 
part there as was commonly supposed. 

Austria was in reality terrorized by the im- 
perialistic hegemony of Hungary. The Vienna 
government was autocratic and bad, but it was 
far less vicious than the oligarchic government 
at Budapest. 

HUNGARY DOMINANT. 

To understand how Hungary in fact domi- 
nated the foreign policies of the Empire, one has 
only to read the list of representatives of the 
Austro-Hungarian government at the principal 
capitals. 

The imperial chancellor when the war broke 
out was Count Berchtold, a Hungarian; his suc- 
cessor was Count Burian, a Hungarian; the 
ambassador at Paris was Count Szecheny, a 
Hungarian; at Petrograd, Count Szapary, a 
Hungarian; at Rome, Count Merey, a Hun- 
garian; at Belgrade, Count Forgach, a Hungar- 
ian, and later Baron Giesel, a Hungarian. 

It has only been through persistent and 
effective propaganda that the Hungarians have 
been able to conceal so long their really tre- 
mendous responsibility for the mismanagement 
of the dual monarchy and responsibility for 
this world war. If Austria, strong and powerful, 
was unable to reveal the state of things, how 
much more helpless were the Roumanians in 
Transylvania to direct the attention of the world 
to their plight. 

24 



VI. 
SOME OF THE CRUELTIES 

To catalogue all the crimes of the Hungarians 
against their subject nationalities, and particu- 
larly the Roumanians, would require a book. 
All their crimes could not be catalogued, so com- 
plete and ruthless in some cases was their work 
of destruction. But it will require only a few 
instances chosen here and there to show how 
systematic and persistent was the Hungarian 
persecution. 

To begin with. There were 8,000,000 Hun- 
garians or Magyars and 12,000,000 non-Magyars 
in Hungary before the crash of the empire. 
There were 420 seats in the Hungarian parlia- 
ment, but all except eight of these seats were 
held by Magyar representatives, leaving the 
great non-Magyar population practically voice- 
less. 

SCHOOLS SUPPRESSED. 

Schools next felt the rough hand of Hunga- 
rian domination, despite a law passed in 1868 by 
which all non-Magyar schools were supposed 
to be supported by the government in propor- 
tion to the numerical strength of the respective 
nationalities . B ut the 3,000 Roumanian schools 
were left entirely to the Roumanians for sup- 
port. Worse still, in 1907, at the instance of the 
merciless Count Apponyi, a policy of suppression 
was directed against the Roumanian institutions, 
and by 1912, more than 600 had been compelled 
to close their doors. 

25 



The Hungarians were particularly jealous of 
thef efTorts^pf^the Roumanian population to 
undertake^ anything like higher .-education. In 
1882, Gen. Trajan Doda was refused permission 
to open a Roumanian Lyceum at Caransebes. 
In 1885,Ja permit for a Lyceum at Arad was 
denied. 

In 1889, the Roumanian Lyceum at Beuse, 
founded in 1826 by a Roumanian, and for many 
years tolerated, was closed by order of the 
Hungarian administration. 

And even when, with their own schools and 
colleges closed, the Roumanians tried to get an 
education in the Hungarian institutions, they 
found the way closed to them. The Hun- 
garians reviled them, called them names, spat 
upon them, and used every means possible to 
drive them back into a condition of ignorance 
and poverty, where the Hungarians felt it would 
be advantageous to keep them. 



SOCIETIES FORBIDDEN. 

Cultural, professional and agricultural socie- 
ties also came under the ban of the Hungarians, 
if they happened^to be^Roumanian. In Sep- 
tember 1881, the Roumanians at Sibiu were 
refused a permit to organize an agricultural 
society. On July 27, 1885, the Roumanian 
cultural society "Opinica Romana" was dis- 
banded by order of the Hungarians. On Feb. 
4, 1890, the Hungarians forbade the Roumanian 
students at Cluj University to organize. On 
Nov. 29, 1890, the Roumanian cultural society 



"Progressul" at Arad was broken up. On Dec. 
6, 1890, the Roumanian women at Cluj were 
denied the right to form a Women's Associa- 
tion, just as a few years before on April 7, 1886, 
the Roumanian women at Satmar had been 
denied the privilege of meetings. 

"Our nationalities must not substitute any 
other culture for the Magyar, for there cannot 
be a special Serb, Roumanian or Slovak cul- 
ture." 

So wrote Baloghy Erno, a Hungarian chau- 
vinist, in his book, "Magyar Culture and the 
Nationalities," (Budapesth 1908, see p. 210). 
And the Hungarians lived up to this doctrine, 
as brutally as they knew how. This was not 
any idea similar to that of the Americanization 
movement in the United States, where a gov- 
ernment is dealing with people who have come 
under its jurisdiction voluntarily. The Hun- 
garians were dealing with people who had been 
in the land long before they came there, who 
were not bound by any obligation to give up 
their heritage of culture or language, who had 
on the contrary every right to preserve their in- 
dividuality ; living as they were within their ethni- 
cal boundaries. 

BLOODY CRUELTIES. 

And the bloody cruelties! Yes, bloody! 
For no people, not even the Armenians, have 
suffered more from the Turks than the Rou- 
manians and the other nationals who came 
under Hungarian rule. It was only a more 
subtle form of massacre and condemnation, 
with a mock ritual of justice and trial by legal 

27 



processes. And the cries of the victims were 
smothered under the wails of the Hungarian 
propagandists. 

Between 1886 and 1908 no fewer than 577 
Roumanians were sentenced to imprisonment 
for 128 years, nine months and twenty three 
days for so-called political offences. There 
was the Merisel massacre, in which a score were 
killed, and as many more injured for life and a 
whole district subjected to a reign of terror. 
And the massacres at Cornereava, Sepreus, 
Aleshd, Cehul-Silvanei, Corni, Baia Mare, Dob- 
ra, Panade and many others — a terrible list of 
crimes. 

In the period just before Roumania entered 
the world war no less than 2,500 Roumanian 
priests and leaders in Hungary, particularly 
Transylvania, were arrested and condemned to 
death or imprisonment. This figure is taken 
from the Hungarian newspaper, "Pester Lloyd." 
How many escaped death can be deduced from this 
fact: Miss Mariora Puia, a Roumanian girl 
was put to death in October, 1915, only for 
the small offence of copying a Roumanian 
national song. 

VII. 

FROM WORLD VIEWPOINT 

So much for the history of Hungarian bru- 
tality toward the Roumanians. It should not 
be necessary to say anything further to explain 
why Roumania entered the war, came in at a 
time when the fight seemed almost hopeless, 



when aid from her Allies was almost a physical 
impossibility. For Roumania, certainly, it was 
no war of conquest but a war for right from the 
beginning. Roumania gave more than 13 per 
cent of her population to the armies she sent 
out to fight the foes of the world — a greater 
sacrifice than that of any other nation. She 
endured a devastating invasion ; and still at the 
end of the war she was able to rise and strike 
down the Red Menace in Hungary. 

EDITORIAL OPINIONS. 

Although many in the United States have 
been deceived by the propaganda of the Hun- 
garian apologists, the most enlightened and 
intelligent opinion has been quick to see the 
justice and necessity of the Roumanian claims. 

The New York Times, March 5, 1920, says 
editorially : 

HUNGARY'S TURN. 

Now that the French have lightened the burden laid on Turkey 
and the British are interceding for easier terms to Germany, it is 
only fair that the Italians should take their turn by demanding 
concessions to Hungary. The question of Hungarian frontiers is 
before the Supreme Council, and the Italian representatives want 
to revise the frontiers of Jugoslavia, Rumania and the Czecho- 
slovak Republic in favor of the Magyars. Perhaps this does not 
mean as much trouble as the recent concessions to the Turks, but 
it will make conditions in Central Europe even worse than they are 
at present if the Italian proposal, to which the British representa- 
tives give approval, is carried out over French protests. 

Hungary has been an applicant for special favors ever since 
the war ended. For a while the Magyars asked these favors with- 
out troubling to give any reason why they should be preferred over 
other hostile nations; but when they found the Peace Conference 
cold to the theory that the Magyars had an indestructible right to 
keep their old frontiers and their ten million unwilling subjects 
new tactics were tried. The Magyars threatened to bring in the 
Bolsheviki unless the Conference yielded. The Conference did 

29 



not yield and Hungary went Bolshevist. Bela Kun's rule was not 
only a curse to Hungary, but a danger to all Central Europe, where 
his agents did their best to provoke or assist Bolshevist in- 
trigue against existing Governments. 

That rule was finally ended by the Rumanians, who were the 
most directly threatened. There was actual war between their 
troops and Kun's Red armies, and the Rumanians eventually 
wearied of the theory of the Peace Conference that in this war the 
Magyars should do all the fighting. The Rumanians put Bela 
Kun out, and have ever since been beset by a campaign of calumny , 
in which sympathizers with Bolshevism have joined forces. 
Thanks to this misrepresentation the allied Governments have 
turned their faces against Rumania, which did them a great service 
when they were unable or afraid to do it, and have showed favors 
to Hungary, which has been persistently hostile. 

When the Rumanians left Budapest the Magyar reactionaries 
came in. Their reign of terror has been worse than that of the 
Bolsheviki; and it has been directed by no means wholly against 
Bolsheviki, but equally against the Magyar liberals who, if they 
ever became strong enough, would make their country a good 
neighbor and a trustworthy member of the Central European 
society of nations. Admiral Horthy, the Regent, is frankly 
merely a seat-warmer for some Hapsburg — if not for the former 
King Charles, or a member of the same family who will continue 
the same tradition. To all the democratic peoples, republican or 
monarchical, in that part of Europe the reactionary Government 
of Hungary is a standing danger. 

The Magyars insist on modification of the frontiers. Lately 
they have put their claim on economic grounds — it has finally been 
made plain to them that the Supreme Council will not recognize 
their inherent right to rule their neighbors, but they say they must 
reannex the lost territories to rebuild the economic life of Hungary. 
Here is a confusion between politics and business. If the Magyars 
behave themselves, they will find that trade can cross frontier 
lines; if they do not behave, it is hard to see why the economic 
restoration of Hungary should be regarded as of more importance 
than the economic prosperity of her neighbors. Why should we 
reward those who fought against us merely because they demand 
it, and punish those who fought for us merely because they did us a 
service? 



And the Cleveland Plain Dealer, on March 
12, 1920, thus exposes the falsity of the Hungar- 
ian claims and the justice of the Roumanian 
position : 

ROUMANIAN METHODS. 

Of the allies Roumania was perhaps most urgently in need of 
immediate aid. The Germans and the allies had occupied all but a 

30 



small corner of Roumania, and when they retreated they swept 
the country bare. Everything takable was taken. The Hun- 
garians, next door neighbors to the Roumanians, were probably 
the largest beneficiaries. To begin the work of rehabilitation 
Roumania needed the things that the Hungarians had stolen. The 
Roumanians watched the progress of events at Paris, and decided 
that the only way to recover their stolen property or its equivalent 
was^o go into Hungary and get it. 

This they did. It necessitated defiance of the mandates of 
the Paris conferees, but the Roumanian leaders believed that the 
justice as well as the practical common sense of their project war- 
ranted ignoring the dictum of the long-distance economists at 
Paris. Moerover, an outlaw communist "government" was 
rapidly ruining Hungary. The Roumanian armies marched into 
Hungary. They defeated the Hungarian reds in a real war, and 
were instrumental in casting out the communists. Then they 
systematically collected their own reparation, asking no aid and 
countenancing no interference. They did not strip Hungary as the 
Hungarians had stripped Roumania. Their collections were made 
in accordance with lists carefully prepared, and the Bukharest 
claim is that the exactions were moderate in comparison with the 
damage that was wrought by the ruthless^enemy during the 
months of Roumania's subjection. 

The result is that Roumania, alone of the allies, has extracted 
substantial payment from her despoilers. Hungary, though hu- 
miliated and very angry, is not suffering as a result of Roumania's 
independent action. On the other hand, Roumania, a nation that 
was practically ruined by the war, a nation that a year ago was 
facing bolshevism, starvation, disunion and collapse, is firmly on 
its feet again, making good progress toward complete rehabilita- 
tion and toward the establishment of a powerful barrier state on 
the threshold of Russia. 



VIII. 
DANGER IN HUN CLAIM 

The problem of Transylvania? At the pres- 
ent time, it has been practically solved. 
It does not exist, except in the clamors of the 
Hungarians for new partitions and divisions for 
the restoration of the plunder on which they 
have lived for so many centuries. 

Transylvania, voluntarily united with the 
kingdom of Roumania, has taken its proper 

si 



place in Roumanian affairs. It is a union based 
on historical, ethnical, geographical right and 
justice. Although reconstruction is neces- 
sarily a slow process the Roumanians have al- 
ready made rapid strides toward permanent 
peace and prosperity. Roumania today stands 
between the western world and Russia. She is 
the guardian of the Balkans. 

GAME OF WAR. 

But 

And this is the great consideration. Unless 
the Roumanians are confirmed in their position 
by the Allies, unless the claims of Hungary for 
new divisions and partitions in Transylvania 
are denied, all that has been accomplished in 
the direction of peace and progress will be lost. 
For all of Transylvania is necessarily Rouman- 
ian. The Hun has no place there. A thousand 
years have proved there can be no union between 
these two peoples in Transylvania. A division 
of Transylvania now would only sow the seed 
for war and turmoil in the future. 

Whether or not the United States joins a 
League of Nations, whether or not the United 
States undertakes to help preserve the peace 
of the world hereafter by force of arms,|the 
people of the United States have now an im- 
portant interest in a just settlement of the 
Transylvanian problem. For the claims of 
Roumania are based on two things for which 
the Americans fought in the war — the self- 
determination of small nations and the princi- 
ples of democracy. 

32 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



020 930 540 9 



